CFP: Slavery (4/30/04; e-journal issue)

full name / name of organization:

Joe Lockard

contact email:

Joe.Lockard@asu.edu

> BAD SUBJECTS>> SLAVERY Issue> Call for Essays>> In 1853, concerning liberal politics that protested foreign slavery but> ignored its own oppressions, Karl Marx connected the struggle against> wage slavery directly with the struggle against race slavery in the US> southern states. "The enemy of British Wage-Slavery has a right to> condemn Negro-Slavery...a Manchester Cotton-lord -- never!" That same> parallel convinced early19th-century trade unionists and readers of> Connolly's 1913 manifesto, "To the Linen Slaves of Belfast". Slavery has> functioned throughout the modern era as a connective metaphor in> political rhetoric.>> The slaveries of everyday life continue no less today than under classic> slave systems. Economic globalization drives wages continually downward> in order to provide dominant economies with cheaper goods, at the> expense of workers in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Impoverished> neo-slavery, absence of labor rights, and subordination to capital> represent the terms of existence neo-liberalism has established for> uncountable hundreds of millions of workers. Large segments of the sex> industry function through violence against women and sex slavery.> Contemporary fiction and film remain profoundly engaged with imagining> lives lived within historical and neo-slaveries, as well as futurist> slave societies of science fiction.>> Slavery remains one of the most relevant descriptions of contemporary> life, yet gets treated as either history or rare exoticism. Bad Subjects> issue 69 will re-explore the metaphor and reality of slavery. Worklife,> economic, gender/sex, national, religion, social discipline and prisons,> or other forms of slavery: we are looking for non-fiction prose essays> of 2500-4000 words that expand the paradigm. We will be especially> interested also in witness essays addressing the forms of neo-slavery> described in Bales' Disposable People. The essays we are looking for> might remember the original words of the Internationale: "Esclaves,> debout, debout / Le monde va changer de base / Nous ne sommes rien,> soyons tout.">> The submission deadline is April 30, 2004; issue publication date is> June 1, 2004.>> Contact issue co-editors Cynthia Hoffman [choff_at_lmi.net] and Joe Lockard> [Joe.Lockard_at_asu.edu] with essays or essay proposals. See Bad Subjects> at <http://eserver.org/bs>.